(CNN) – This mother’s passionate plea for gun control will air in living rooms around the country on the second anniversary of her daughter’s death.

“My nine-year old daughter was murdered in the Tuscon shooting,” says Roxanna Green. “I have one question for our political leaders: when will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby?”

“Whose child has to die next?”

Her daughter Christina was among the six killed and 13 wounded in the shooting at neighborhood event with then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on January 8, 2011. Giffords was among those wounded and who eventually resigned from Congress to focus on her recovery. Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty in August to 19 counts related to the shooting.

But Green remembers her daughter, the youngest victim of the shooting, and calls for action in a new television ad from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

His group also enlisted celebrities to star in a recent video supporting the effort to “Demand a Plan” for action on gun control.

Green’s daughter was a few years older than the 20 six- and seven-year-olds killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, at a shooting there December 14.

That shooting sparked a new wave of calls for gun control, including from leaders in Washington. President Barack Obama pledged “meaningful action” against gun violence and appointed Vice President Joe Biden to lead the effort.

Bloomberg applauded Obama’s statement and urged him to take “immediate steps.” On Monday, Bloomberg outlined his platform, including strengthening background check requirements and banning assault weapons. The assault weapons ban was enacted in 1994, but expired in 2004, and has not been renewed.

The influential National Rifle Association argued the Newtown shooting made the case for armed guards in schools as a line of defense.

The ad will run on cable in Washington, beginning Tuesday and will air through January 14 – the one month anniversary of the Newtown shooting. Obama set the end of January as the deadline for Biden’s group to report back.

It will run Tuesday only in Tuscon, Arizona, as well as other cities affected by gun violence: Binghamton, New York; Fargo, North Dakota; Roanoke, Virginia; and Waco, Texas; Denver and Milwaukee. In Tuscon, the group says the ad will run around 10:10 a.m. local time, to mark when the shooting occurred.

Also Tuesday, Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, launched a new website, "Americans for Responsible Solutions." The new effort will "encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership," according to the website. The couple further marked the day by co-authoring an op-ed in "USA Today."

"We can't be naive about what it will take to achieve the most common-sense solutions," the op-ed states. "We can't just hope that the last shooting tragedy will prevent the next. Achieving reforms to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources."

Bloomberg’s ad encourages people to sign an online petition on the group’s website.

Christina, the nine-year-old, was remembered at her funeral as the only girl on her Little League team – and one aspiring to the major leagues. She attended the Giffords event after her election to the middle school student council.

“To every mother, we can not wait,” Green says in the ad. “We have to demand a plan.”

soundoff(317 Responses)

Ed1

We don't need more gun laws we need to hold people accountable for their actions.

An assault weapons can fire three round with the pull of the trigger once, or you can select full automatic, or fire a single shout like a semi automatic. You can't buy a weapon like this without a special permit period or you can buy off the streets like the gang members do. You might try Holder to see if they have any left they want to sell.

Making people held accountable and better back ground checks would help but taking a knee jerk reaction to ban all semi automatic weapons are just absurd and people asking for that are not very smart too.

Look it up 56 million people have died where country's have banned guns is this what you want if it is then go to a Country that have laws like that.

January 8, 2013 02:03 pm at 2:03 pm |

tony

Doesn't freedom mean that citizens should have the right to drive on either side of a freeway?

January 8, 2013 02:15 pm at 2:15 pm |

norma jean

Kevin ....if it were someone you loved who was shot ....you would be seeing this in a whole different light!!!! You know it and so do we!!!! Wake up people...sure....people die every day from different actions such as auto s but isn't it a little different than someone taking a gun and shooting up twenty little children on ourpose!!! If you can't se that....you are in trouble!!!!

January 8, 2013 02:16 pm at 2:16 pm |

Doug

I drive home in a very blue Democrat part of the country, most of these Democrats navigating 2 ton vehicles have a total disregard for the lives of others and go out of their way to try to harm a complete stranger.

Sure, it would save thousands of lives each year if we took cars away from Democrats but we don't do that do we? This is real, unlike what is talked about here, none of these emo-libs vote Republican, they are all Democrat so there is no relevancy with their actions in Colorado, Arizona or at any school as a reason to take guns away from responsible Conservative gun owners who save thousands of lives each year with their guns.

We have Democrats in America, millions, very few value life and each Democrat has many means to inflict their desired death and destruction. There is no sensible way to combat this other than to try to show them love, compassion, decency, and how much better life is when you don't go around hating and wanting to hurt people.

January 8, 2013 02:25 pm at 2:25 pm |

houbie

Everyone mourns the loss of an innocent victim, especially when that victim is a child.

Honoring that victim is a responsibility of the society they left behind, and it can come in many forms. One form, however, should not be an illogical solution to a vary real problem.

There has never been a gunshot victim of a responsible citizen. By definition, once you commit a violent crime you can no longer be considered a responsible citizen. However, the anti-gun advocates seem to think that by taking guns out of the hands of responsible citizens they are denying guns to those irresponsible people that commit these heinous crimes. That really doesn't make sense.

A responsible citizen who owns a gun will use it and secure it in a responsible manner. Their gun will never get in the hands of someone who is irresponsible. I never met a responsible gun owner who wanted to own a surface to air missle launcher or flame thrower or bazooka to protect themselves or their families. Some do want semi-automatic weapons because should they be confronted by criminals with those weapons, they want to make it a fair fight.

Everyone can agree that they only want guns in the hands of responsible citizens. Let's agree on ways we can be sure that happens.

January 8, 2013 02:34 pm at 2:34 pm |

Larry L

@mikeinsa

Larry L said, "Nonsense. He used an FN Five-seven semi-automatic pistol and fired many, many rounds from his extra, pre-loaded magazines. Some of them had 20 and 30 round capacities. In addition to the dead I believe about 29 were wounded. He was coached in a local gun shop by a person you would consider a "good guy". Several other "good guys" were shot trying to stop him – some had firearms."

He had an FN Five Seven. So? Bullet caliber has nothing to do with what he did.
He had pre-loaded magazines. So. He's evil, not retarded.
20 – 30 round magazines. As a matter of fact, high capacity magazines can be less reliable than smaller magazines. The Aurora shooter had a 100 round magazine and it jammed after a few rounds.
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So – if he'd been limited to purchasing a six shot revolver w/o speed-loading devices he'd have been just as effective? B.S. I own those weapons and have used them in rapid fire scenarios – more than you'll know. Your inability to step away from the technical aspects and look at common sense solutions will ultimately take you out of the discussion. It's not about the name of the weapon but about the capacity and capability. You know that but desperately seek validation for illogical arguments. N.R.A. sound-bites will ultimately cost us our weapons.

January 8, 2013 02:39 pm at 2:39 pm |

Aaron

Yesterday in Columbus, OH – A man was robbed at gun point while getting out of the car with his 2 month old child. The robber didn't know the man had a CCP. Bad news for the robber...robber is now in hospital and off of the streets and the man and his child are safe. Didn't get that one on CNN did you? That's why people need guns...because there are crazies out there and we need to protect ourselves.

January 8, 2013 02:41 pm at 2:41 pm |

ghostriter

If conservatives are correct in that laws don't deter crime, we should just throw out all the laws we have on the books.

Laws aren't just to deter crime, but give us an avenue to prosecute those who break them. More laws will give law enforcement more avenues to stop these things before they happen.

January 8, 2013 02:43 pm at 2:43 pm |

Larry L

@Davis

Sorry, but you won't be taking our guns. My mouth has already stated this and now my words have stated it. The Bill of rights are not negotiable. They were made that way and to stand for all time. These are inalienable rights endowed by our Creator.
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Your "creator" didn't write the Bill of Rights. They were written by honorable men who had just won a revolution – and considered a well-regulated militia a reasonable means of national defense. They had no ability to envision the capability of modern weapons nor could they have visualized societies where people mow-down school children with those weapons. We had slavery then. Women couldn't vote. Things must evolve with the changing times.

January 8, 2013 02:46 pm at 2:46 pm |

Eric

You know what. I don't care that those children were killed. I really don't. The situation with guns in this country is not going to change. This being the case, I see no reason to get my guts all tied up in knots when people get killed. And that's going to be true whether the victims are 6 months or 60 years old. So the next time there's a mass shooting, i'm just gonna turn off the TV, put on some classic rock, and go happily on with my life. It isn't worth getting upset over.

@ ARqueen
You wrote: It is not the GUN. It is people who is holding it ..

Mmmmh! It is not food which make people survive, it is people who eat that food. Can you compare your argument with yours?

January 8, 2013 02:49 pm at 2:49 pm |

Brian from DC

Why won't Americans look squarely in the mirror and admit how they really feel–they're perfectly willing to accept a large number of random killings of innocent men, women and children as long as they can keep their guns. It's not a complex issue to them so why pretend it is.

January 8, 2013 02:49 pm at 2:49 pm |

Ed

I agree, whose child has to die next? When are we going to face up to the fact that these mass killings are always the work of people who are dangerously mentally ill? The mental health system, families of the sick and society in general has enabled these people by refusing to deal with the fact that they are dangerous. Symptoms are ignored or covered up, doctors don't report dangerous people, families pretend that nothing is wrong and authorities are often unwilling to look into complaints. Dangerous people are sent home with a prescription and a pat on the head. This is certainly not to say that every person who is mentally ill is dangerous, but every one of these mass killers appears to be seriously mentally ill.

January 8, 2013 02:51 pm at 2:51 pm |

ST

Correction: Can you compare your argument with mine?

January 8, 2013 02:53 pm at 2:53 pm |

Canuck

@sadpandagirl
"When robbers or rapists are deciding who to target"

Sheesh, you didn't even answer the question and then you insult the poster. Nice....

January 8, 2013 02:54 pm at 2:54 pm |

scieng1

I have also lost a child, and understand the value of life. What I do not understand is why Bloomberg thinks that more of the same, failed laws and policies that promote murder will somehow stop it. For those of us who have been victums of gun violence, Bloomberg's and Obama's suggestions are just insulting our intelligence. What we need is to stop violence, not enable more of it.

January 8, 2013 02:59 pm at 2:59 pm |

N. S.

The solution is not "EiITHERr" mental health and background checks, "OR" restriction on semi-autos and clip size.
It is both, as a partial help. We may not be able to stop all gun violence, but we can reduce it, just like we cannot stop all speeding or drunk driving, but we reduce it.
More guns, guns in schools don't help, we know from experience, Columbine school had an armed cop! – no help.
The Giffords shooting- there was an armed bystander, who almost killed the RESCUER.
Manufacturers and their shill, the NRA, don't care, they just want to sell more gunsand ammo. Their solutions are phony, NRA is a disgrace to decent, responsible gun owners like me and many of my friends.

January 8, 2013 03:01 pm at 3:01 pm |

trufaldino

You can't reason with the gun extremists that have captured the NRA. They just refuse to see the obvious relationship between easy gun availabilty and guns winding up in the hands of mental incompetents in the suburbs and gangs in the inner city. In fact, they do their best to gag studies that would show the relationship and indicate the best practical approaches to diminish the number of horrors like Newtown, Aurora and Arizona not to mention the inner city. The reason they refuse to see it is because the extremists' interest in guns approaches a fetish, and given a choice, they would prefer that children die rather than see any imposition on their fetish no matter how light or reasonable or how many deaths it would prevent. Of course, they can't publicly say that that is their choice, so instead they come out with all of these lame arguements that about how guns have nothing to do with gun violence. Roxanna Green is absolutely right. The deaths will continue until political leaders stand up to the gun extremists. Until then, the gun extremists will cause more innocents to die in order to protect their gun fetish. We just don't which innocent will be next or which parent will be forced to sacrifice their child on the alter of the NRA.

January 8, 2013 03:02 pm at 3:02 pm |

yogi

@ Aaron.
Good Lord, with your logic everyone should have a gun all the time because..."you never know". When can we elevate the consciousness and be more civilized, rather that create a continuous 'Wild West"?

January 8, 2013 03:04 pm at 3:04 pm |

Ferret out the BS

and so the shouting at each other continues........

January 8, 2013 03:07 pm at 3:07 pm |

lisaspups

I agree with the reporter who suggested that pictures of the children at the crime scene and on the autopsy table should be shown to the public. Showing these beautiful children as they were prior to the tragedy takes away from the reality of it, and there is plenty of evidence of that on the comment blog. I believe ini the right of individuals to protect themselves, but until someone comes up with a more viable solution, the general public has no busines with an assault weapon and extended magazines. Too many innocent lives have been lost for us to continue doing nothing but arguing.

January 8, 2013 03:09 pm at 3:09 pm |

yogi

@Eric
What a disgusting post, a big part of a big problem. The poster boy of the NRA.

January 8, 2013 03:10 pm at 3:10 pm |

lisaspups

Eric, I wonder if your response would be the same if someone you loved dearly ended up in the line of fire. Somehow, I doubt it, but like most NIMBYs, you don't care about anything until it hits close to home, and, then, all of a sudden it not only matters to you, but you expect it to matter to everyone else.

January 8, 2013 03:13 pm at 3:13 pm |

Rudy NYC

Ryan

* A 1982 survey of male felons in 11 state prisons dispersed across the U.S. found:[21]
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If you cannot cite the survey, you "facts" are absolutely meaningless because they cannot be refuted. Anonymous surveys don't pass the muster. But, let me ask you this. How many of those "criminals" surveyed were incarcerated because of gun related crimes? Do that same survey today and not the differences. I would expect the numbers to be higher now.